No one likes being shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, heavy-breathing humans, all angling for the same benches, machines and weights. In an ideal world, we’d all walk in and blissfully have the health club to ourselves.
Unfortunately, though, most of us live in the real world, where we have few options other than trying to squeeze in our weight session right before or after our 9-to-5 — meaning we’re left to navigate the rabble while still trying to get the best workout we can.
Michelle Basta Speers, NSCA-CPT, endurance athlete and personal trainer based in Wrightwood, California, has the solution when it comes to leg day. You just need to corral a Smith machine for the front end, and then a bench or step and a set of two matching kettlebells (or dumbbells will work in a pinch) for the finish — that’s just three stations for one killer workout.